When a user interacts with a computing device via a gesture recognition system, the user's fingers often cover an area of the display when gesturing. For example, a user may gesture to turn a page in a book presented on the display of the computing device. Alternatively, the user may be gesturing with an item in his/her fingers while playing a three dimensional augmented reality video game. While the user is gesturing, the user's fingers and/or the item in the user's fingers may occlude the user from viewing an area of the display. As a result, it is difficult for the user to view the occluded content on the display.
Current solutions to this occlusion problem estimate the location of a user's fingers to determine an occluded area on the display based on a user's fingers touching the display. The content from the occluded area on the display is moved based on the estimated placement of the user's fingers. However, if the user's fingers are positioned differently than the computing device estimates, the moved content may still be occluded from the user's view. Additionally, because current solutions only estimate the position of a user's fingers, the computing system does not account for any item that the user is holding which also may occlude the user's view of an area on the display. Another shortcoming of current solutions is that they require the user's hand to be in contact with a touch-sensitive screen in order to function. Those approaches will not work if the user's hand is in mid-air or if the screen is not touch sensitive. Accordingly, a need exists for improved techniques to solve these and other problems.